Miners drag local share market down

The Australian share market has bucked overnight gains in the US and solid Asian market rises to finish just in the red.

The All Ordinaries index ended the day down six points at 5,444, and the ASX 200 was also off 0.1 per cent to close at 5,434.

Iron ore miners were the main drag on the market, after the key steelmaking ingredient lost 2 per cent in Chinese spot trade yesterday.

That is the fourth fall in a row, taking the benchmark price below $US120 a tonne for the first time since July.

Fortescue Metals was hit hard, down 2.5 per cent to $5.84, while Rio Tinto lost 1.33 per cent and BHP Billiton 0.7 per cent.

The scale of the falls basically matched each company's relative reliance on iron ore sales.

While miners drove the falls, other blue chips did not do much to hold the market up.

Two of the major banks were marginally up, but two were down, with Westpac losing 0.5 per cent.

Telstra was flat at $5.12, and a 0.1 per cent gain for Woolworths merely offset a 0.2 per cent slide for Wesfarmers.

One bright spot was QBE. After losing 20 per cent when it warned investors in December about a bad full-year result, it gained more than 5 per cent on the actual numbers - even though it was a $281 million loss.

Cabcharge shares rose 6 per cent after it reported an 8 per cent rise in first-half profit.

Around 5.00pm AEDT the Australian dollar was fairly steady at 90.25 US cents, 65.7 euro cents and 92.5 Japanese yen.

West Texas crude was worth around $US103 a barrel and Tapis eased just below $US116.

Spot gold was holding on to recent gains at more than $US1,334 an ounce.